Hanno has met enough barbarians to be able to guess what to expect from the newly encountered Pictones.
Nicholas van Rijn has met enough aliens to be able to deduce what is going on with the recently discovered Cainites.
Competent Andersonian heroes display common skills in different periods and different timelines.
That is my last thought for tonight and it is a valid one. Tomorrow we might see more of Hanno and of some other immortals. Or we might be doing something else, of course.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
What I expect from barbarians ancient, modern, and to come is war, raids, massacre, gang rapes, looting, destruction, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Hanno knows how to present himself as an envoy, thus making himself sacred, then impress them with magic tricks. His group presents gifts, thus obliging the Pictones to give more expensive items in return.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Very good! Yes, in ancient times heralds, envoys, ambassadors had a sacred status, giving them special protections, even to envoys from hostile peoples.
Still reading the Acts of the Apostles, having reached the chapter about the riot of the silversmiths in Ephesus. But I should probably also reread THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Otherwise, the Pictones might well have attacked.
I think that that riot is significant. Paul preached against idolatry. In the Vulgate: "Non sunt dei quod manibus faciunt." "They are not gods that are made by hand." The rioters replied, "Great is Diana of Ephesus!" A few centuries later, a Church Council in Ephesus declared Mary "Mater Dei." There was a need for devotion to a female figure.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, without Hanno's shrewdness, the Pictones very likely would have attacked.
Christians like Paul and Apollos preached the Gospel so successfully in the province of Asia that Demetrius the silversmith felt threatened.
The Council of Ephesus met to face the challenge of the Nestorian heresy. And the Church was careful to define that the BVM is not a divine person, not a goddess. St. Mary is the Mother of God in the sense that she gave to her Son all that every mother gives to their children, such as their physical bodies.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: the Virgin isn't -officially- a Goddess.
But traditional Catholic treatment of her was that she was -effectively- a Goddess, just a subordinate one.
Ditto a lot of saints; people addressed them (and the Virgin) in prayers, asking for intercession with the more distant divine figure of God.
I know the official doctrine, of course. I was educated in it. But I think that there must have been very little difference in popular consciousness between "Mother of God" and "Mother Goddess." Mary is even called "Queen of Heaven."
I think that the argument: Mary is the mother of Jesus; Jesus is God; therefore, Mary is the Mother of God - is a bit of a stretch. "God" usually means an eternal or beginningless being that cannot have had or needed a parent.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: And Our Lady is not a goddess, nor have I ever believed her to be divine. Nor do I believe the official teaching about the BVM made her functionally a goddess. The excesses of devotion to her, which has scandalized iconoclastic minded Protestants, came from naiver Catholics not as well educated in the Faith as they should have been. And that was also the case with ordinary saints,
What is "prayer," anyhow? The word simply means to earnestly entreat or petition another for a benefit. Moreover, I've seen things in legal cases like this: "This person prays the court to grant the benefit requested." I've had to make similar points over and over to Jack Chick style anti-Catholics!
Paul: Exactly! Too many of the more naive Catholics failed to keep properly in mind the distinctions I made above. And Our Lady is the Queen of Heaven, without me believing in the least she is divine.
I believe, as a matter of divine revelation, that Christ is the Incarnate Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity. If that Incarnation is to be anything real it has to mean the BVM truly bore God in her womb. Yes, God had no need to do that, but He chose to become truly man. Which scandalizes some!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: she certainly was to, say, medieval peasants. Who were illiterate, and had very little grasp of official Church doctrine.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, and that was a point made by Anderson in his preface to THE MERMAN'S CHILDREN, where he warned readers that the naive piety of peasants and fishers was not that of educated Catholics like St. Thomas Aquinas.
Ad astra! Sean
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